


Mitzi

by verybadhedgehog



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Anxious Hux, Armitage Hux - Freeform, Candy, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Hux Backstory, Hux and Ren Eat Things, M/M, Self-Indulgent, Sobbing, Soft Kylux, bad sad lonely boys' protective force bubble treehouse, two bad and sad broken men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-12
Updated: 2017-05-02
Packaged: 2018-07-22 19:59:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7452100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verybadhedgehog/pseuds/verybadhedgehog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kylo tries to be helpful when Hux is anxious. The root of the problem is in the past. The past is a dangerous place.<br/>(This is deeply self-indulgent melodramatic fluff.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kylo senses Hux's anxiety and offers to help him. He seems to want to cuddle with Hux, and to talk about the past.

An insistent pounding at the door.

A blinking light on the door control panel.

_Can’t let him in. Won’t. Can’t see me like this. Go away. Just don’t have come. Can’t let him in._

On jittering reluctant feet, Hux took steps towards the door. Stiff legged, staccato steps, each one wanting to turn around and go another way.

_Can’t let him in. Why am I letting him in?_

The door was open now and the Knight took up space in the doorway, standing in that confusing way he had that was part imposing and part hesitant. 

“I sensed your distress,” Ren said, in his measured and serious tone. “It’s disturbing.” 

“I’d rather not…”

“You should meditate with me again. It would help you.”

“I won’t have this discussion here.” Hux’s tone was stilted, voice catching in his mouth. “Come in.”

Ren stepped into the room and closed the door behind him with a movement of his hand, before advancing on Hux like a wave on the ocean.  “We need to sit and be quiet and comfortable. Couch or bed?”

His hand was on Hux’s sleeve. Typically warm. He was stroking Hux’s upper arm now. It felt… nice. His great canvas-bound arms folded around Hux, hugging him.

“You don’t have to do this, Ren.”

“I choose to.”

He was so big and warm and solid, and Hux wanted to be held. And he didn’t want to be held. And more than anything, he didn’t want to be the sort of person who wanted to be held. Certainly not now. Almost more than he wished, somewhere in a badly hidden part of his insides, that he _could_ be the sort of person who wanted to be held. Perhaps it would make things easier. It would surely make this thing with Ren easier.

Ren asked again. “Couch or bed? I’ll take my boots off, it’s OK.”

“I don’t need this.” 

Ren tilted his head and made a “hmmm?” sound. Hux resigned himself to picking one of the two options. He could have had no part of it and thrown Ren out but now that he was here…

“Bed. The couch isn’t comfortable.”

“OK. You should be in comfortable things. Boots and jacket off. Put on something loose.”

Hux loosed his belt, unfastened his jacket and, having removed it, carefully hung it up. He brushed the front of his jacket for a while longer than usual. Finding the correct focus again, he took off one boot, then, sighing heavily, the other. He placed them against the wall, aligned correctly. It was right.

His hands weren’t right as he unbuttoned his breeches. He could do this. He could make it right, at least this part, just by being careful.

_Might lose track of time. Might take too long on this. Must keep proper focus._

The breeches were correctly clipped onto their hanger and correctly aligned. It was right.

Hux put on a pair of training sweat pants, and sat on his bed, back to the headboard.

Ren had shed his outer layers and stood in leggings, undershirt and socks. He settled down next to Hux, shoulder to shoulder with him.

“Now we’re going to breathe together. You can follow my breathing. Follow me, OK?”

Hux assented.

“And you will feel my mind come close to yours. You can let me in if you so choose. Or you can know I am nearby.”

His breathing slowed – it was easy to follow along with Kylo’s breathing and feel his warmth, always there close by. Hux’s mind felt softer, slower and a little sleepy. There was a presence, dark and soft and calming.

Kylo was gently squeezing his hand. It was OK. Nice, even. Easy. Now he was applying gentle pressure to the front of Hux’s shoulders and across his collarbone where the tension had gathered. It was warmer and softer than it the touch of a hand would have been – he must have been using something of the Force.

“That’s better. I helped you.” 

There was a hint of pride in Ren’s voice that Hux couldn’t help but find endearing. Then Ren pressed a light kiss to his temple, and that, too, he couldn’t help but find endearing. 

“Why are you doing this?”

“We take comfort in one another.”

“Yes, but why?”

“Because we can. Who else do we have but one another?”

The tension rose up and seized hold of him again. 

“I’m sorry,” Kylo murmured, and the warm hands of the Force calmed Hux again. “It is simply the way things are. We take comfort in one another and I find myself attuned to you. I choose to comfort you. But not for my sake alone. I choose to.”

Hux frowned and sighed. “I had it all,” he said, eyes fixed on the ceiling. “It was all working.”

“I didn’t understand you before,” Kylo said. What good was it to talk of how things had been before. Hux had had it all, _before_. “But now we know something of each other. We have one another now. It’s more than I knew back then.”

 _Before_. Before the disaster. Before everything crumbled away and it had all proved to be for nothing. Before even the chance to pay the price and be thought of with honour had been taken away.

“It’s no good.”

It was very quiet. He couldn’t hear the low hum of the _Finalizer_ ’s engines, or the gentle tapping noises that the heating and air conditioning system sometimes made. Something might be wrong and he wouldn’t hear it. 

“Ren, I can’t hear the ship.”

With a broad gesture of his hand, Ren indicated a faint mauve-tinged glow in the air.  A sort of membrane separated them from the rest of the room, and inside, it was quiet. It was like being on the inside of a soap bubble. “I made us a little protection,” he explained. “To help us feel safe, for a little while.”

“What if there’s an alert? I won’t hear it.”

“Alerts have visual signals, too. Flashing lights on your console. We’ll notice. Don’t worry.”

Hux inhaled deeply and let it out in a long sigh. “If you must.”

“It’s always safe here, but now it’s… more so. Just us. No work, no Order, no Leader, nothing.”

“Won’t he notice if you’re shut off from him?”

“No. It’s just like deep meditation. It’s something I’m supposed to be able to do.”

Ren kissed him twice on the cheek. Letting this unpredictable man start making a habit of kissing him had been a decision made in despair and desperation. Hux wouldn’t have undone it for anything in the galaxy.

“I had thought we were just, you know, seeing each other. Nothing too complicated. Nothing that would need all of this.”

“Stop overthinking.”

“Can’t.” Hux took a breath. “Kylo. I don’t need this. I don’t know what you’re trying to do, but I don’t need it. I took a peculiar turn, that’s all. I controlled myself, with your kind assistance. I can be back to normal in a moment. I have things to do. Battles to plan. So much to do. Should have started already. Got behind. Lost too many good people.” He was shaking and his hands beat out an irregular rhythm on the mattress.

Ren held him again. “Breathe with me. Follow me.”

The calming presence was there once more.

“I wish you’d known how to be calm before, Ren.”

“I have learnt much.” Kylo’s big warm hands caressed his upper arm. “I learnt some things about you.”

“Oh.” Hux’s stomach sank and a small ache grew in his head. What files had Ren been reading? Who had he been talking to? Or interrogating. Yet, perhaps he could help, if help was even the right word. Hux was so tired.

“We can sleep here,” Kylo said.

“Yes. It’s my bed. But it’s only 20:04. I have things to do.”

Kylo shushed him. “Maybe a nap, then.”

“Maybe a nap,” Hux allowed, settling himself against Ren’s shoulder.

“You look so beautiful like this.”

“Oh. OK.”

“You do. Do you remember what I said about the time we met?”

“I’m sure you’ve said.”

“I thought you were quite lovely. I mean, I found you very attractive. On first sight.”

“No. You didn’t.”

“I did. I like telling you this story. I then found you objectionable and obstructive, but I’ve always thought you’re pretty”

“Don’t say that.”

“You are.”

“No. Not ‘pretty’. Makes me feel small and girlish. Don’t like it.”

“Well. In that case. Slender and elegant. I like your shape. Your fine bones. Long fingers. Can’t explain why. I just like it.” Ren wrapped an arm around Hux, and spread his hand over Hux’s waist, heavy and warm. “Lovely.”

“Ugh. Makes me feel pathetic, needing a big strong man to hold me and look after me.”

“No, a big strong man is choosing to hold you and look after you. Because he wants to. With all my strength and my powers, can’t I do what I want?”

“You usually do. Beats following orders.”

“I do try,” Ren said, earnestly. “Sometimes things happen.”

“I suppose they do.”

“We both failed. Me more than you – you see, I can admit it. But he didn’t do away with us, so here we are. If I want to spend my time with you I shall. You like it.”

“I do. I wish I didn’t, but I do.”

Ren’s hand was welcome and soothing on Hux’s waist. His breath, hot against Hux’s hair as he spoke.

“Were you happy before?”

“When things went well, yes, I suppose.”

“I wasn't asking about your work.”

“Oh, OK. I don’t know. You?”

Ren’s voice was low and thoughtful. “Sometimes. More than I realised. A long time ago.”

“Well, happiness is for fools.”

“You were happy sometimes. A long, long time ago.”

Hux refused to think about it. He wouldn’t cry. “When I was little more than a baby. But we all had to work hard.”

“I want you to be happy again. Just temporarily. If you don’t like it. It’s an experiment.”

“OK.”

“You could remember those times.”

“No. Kylo, it’s too much. It’s all in the past. We all had to work hard. I worked hard. I worked _so fucking hard_ and it’s all gone.” He took a shivering breath. 

Ren shushed him again, with soft kisses on his forehead. “You’re OK. It’s alright here, just for now.” He paused before speaking again very gently. “You remember your mother.”

“Don’t make me. Yes. She was tall and thin. Like me. Light hair. Grey eyes. She worked at the school. I think she wanted a different kind of job. I’m not sure. She didn’t have the determination. Weak willed, you see.”

Ren listened intently, and pulled a face at the last comments. “An incisive character assessment. Original, too.” 

“Yes. Whatever.” 

“Did she read to you? Was she nice to you?” Ren almost whispered his awful questions into Hux’s hair.

“Yes. She did. She was.” It was almost unbearable. Many things could be borne, however.

“Did she have a special name for you, or did she use your whole name?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me.”

“I can’t.” Hux closed his eyes tightly.

“I want to know. It’s important.”

“How can it be? How can it be important, Ren? Now?”

“It’s important to me. I feel guided. By the Force.”

“Look inside if you want to know. That’s what you _do_ , isn’t it?”

“No. I’d rather you just say.”

“Can’t.”

“OK. You sleep now. It’s warm and quiet. I’m here.” Absurd that he should expect Hux to simply sleep after probing so deeply into him. Without even using the bloody Force, simply by letting Hux’s weakness finally unfold itself and leak his stupid secrets. Yet it was so warm and comfortable, and Hux did so badly want to rest.

“I still don’t know why you’re doing this.”

“Because I want to,” Ren said. “We only have each other. I choose this.” In an almost imperceptible whisper he added “I need this.”

He was so warm and comfortable for Hux to rest against and nestle close to.

After a few minutes, words rose up and lay heavy in Hux’s throat, refusing to be swallowed again. “She called me Mitzi, when I was tiny.”

“Mitzi.” Ren’s voice was still quiet, but thick. “Can I call you that?”

“No. Not now. No.”

“OK. I shan’t, then. If you change your mind, though? Tell me. Please.”

Hux couldn’t help but weep silently onto Ren’s clothes for a short moment. He was surely broken, bleeding out his secrets freely. He stopped his crying; either for his sake or Ren’s, he wasn’t sure. Ren soothed him, his own voice a little shaky, and he let himself fall into a short sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> join us soon in chapter 2 for real heavy duty sobbing in the bad sad lonely boys' protective force bubble treehouse.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Memories come to the surface. An unbroken line joins the past to the present. Ren wants to be kind.

Hux had been hard at work refining changes to the Stormtrooper character and loyalty assessment. The question of how to assess and manage loyalty and group cohesion had been pressing ever since the FN-2187 incident and the subsequent handful of copycat incidents.

He was satisfied with the new plan of action he and Phasma had agreed, which would flag up inappropriate levels of peer empathy while continuing to encourage group cohesion, loyalty and obedience.

Phasma’s feedback suggested the new tests were working well.

Hux had a small worry, a nagging unease, a feeling that could be best put into words as _what if I didn’t pass that test_. Although it was quite silly. He would of course, if he were required to take it, pass the test. He knew exactly how to pass the test. Passing tests was something he was extremely good at. He put the thought from his mind.  

For now, though, he had a batch of reports from various division leaders that needed to be read and commented and signed off on.

***

Ren leant against the wall, doing nothing but looking at Hux, who was turned round in his chair, gazing back. Hux knew, though, that he couldn’t afford to sit and tell the fortune of Ren’s face, picking out the notes of hope and desire and sadness from it as if he were at a wine tasting. 

“I’m here again,” Ren said at last.

“You are.”

“I want to be close to you,” he said. Hux smiled to himself at this. “It keeps me balanced. Your energy in the Force, it… resonates.”

Hux shook his head and sighed. “I’m busy. If you want, you can sit by me while I finish commenting these reports.”

“We could sit on the couch.”

“No, Ren, I’ll finish these up quicker at my desk.”

Ren took off his cowl and surcoat, to Hux’s raised eyebrow, then folded them up into a makeshift cushion. He placed it on the floor by Hux’s desk, and sat.

He sat quietly, as if meditating, and perhaps he was – it was neither Hux’s zone of interest not his area of expertise to be able to tell for certain. Eyes closed and face serene. Elegant in profile. Haunting, with his great savage scar, and jarringly beautiful. 

Hux allowed himself another thin smile. An odd creature, this one. An irritant, an obstacle in his way, wilfully obstructive, and the only comfort in his life. It was a bitter kind of irony, that they should have been brought together by awful, hideous failure. Each of them had previously been forged to their purpose in two very different fires, and now their failures had changed them again, had weakened and softened them. Kylo claimed, in his typical oblique, self-important, quasi-mystical way, to have been both weakened and strengthened. Kylo did rather like to have a justification for everything he did.

Hux should not be letting himself get distracted. He read another report and added comments. In places, he felt at the peak of confidence in his ability to communicate accurately and concisely, satisfied that he was doing a far better job than others could manage in his place. Mere minutes later he was hesitant, and doubting his judgement. He was starting to lose his thread again.

He felt a gentle touch near his knees as Ren played with the cloth of his breeches, tracing the seams with a finger, toying with the buttons. It was not at all unpleasant.  He looked down, and Ren rested his face against Hux’s thigh. He reached a hand into Ren’s hair. So soft.

“Your hair is still a disgrace, you know.”

Ren’s arm reached up around his waist. The Knight was clinging to him now. “I like to be close to you.”

It was unnaturally quiet again, which meant the protective bubble was surely in place. Hux was tempted to glance up and check for the same mauve-tinged glow he’d seen those few nights ago, but felt that to do so would be a chase after phantoms. 

“Do you want me to… or would you lie down with me and, well, you won’t call it meditation? I want to feel your presence in the Force. Something there draws me in.”

Normally, as far as anything about their odd little arrangement of a relationship could be considered normal, Hux would have seized upon any offer of sex. Normally, Ren wouldn’t have been so coy. Hux was still tempted to take up the offer, as the option that involved less talking.

He looked over his last few comments and signed out of the documents. “Finished now.” He stood and made his way to his bedchamber, and began to unfasten his jacket.

“Let’s lie down together, then.”

So, once in loose shirt sleeves, they lay down. As before, they breathed together. Ren stroked the back of Hux’s hand.

“That’s nice. I’m trying not to think about all this, because I can’t find sense and reason in it. I shan’t waste energy trying.”

“Good," Ren said, low and soothing. "Don’t think too much. Breathe. Feel the Force pass through you.”

“I don’t feel those things.”

“You do, a little. You feel when I warm you.”

“I suppose.”

“You think it serves you to pretend to be a piece of stone.”

Hux tensed and winced; Ren’s words found the weak spots in him, even when Ren was trying in his own way to be kind.

“Shhh.” Ren’s voice was low and soft and terribly compelling. “Let me warm you where you are cold. I see so much now. Empty places we can fill.”

“You’re not in there without me knowing?”

“No. No. You would know. I feel the resonance of you. The shape of it.”

Hux’s brow twitched and he made an annoyed whine.

“Shh. Breathe with me.”

He breathed, following Ren’s lead again, and his mind slowed a little. Ren’s hair brushed his neck.

“Did you think about what I asked you the last time we lay here?”

“I don’t know, Ren.” It was all rather too much. Some things were kept locked away for a reason. But they had begun to spill and leak and make themselves known. The worst of it was that it hadn’t all been Ren’s sorcery.

The mattress shifted as Ren turned onto his side to face Hux. “We can find more balance if we lean on each other. Let me.”

It was like a whisper in his mind, barely heard, barely remembered. 

 _Mitzi_.

_~Mummy collecting him from Auntie Jo’s, her big work apron folded up and tucked into her bag hiding a box of leftovers from the school kitchens, back to the apartment which must have been tiny but of course that was good preparation for living on a starship, if he’d only known. Mummy had borrowed a book from Mrs Willan and they were going to read it together~_

Hux’s heart tore apart. His stomach fell away from him and his arms and hands felt numb against his bed sheets. This is what it would feel like to step off a walkway into nothingness. This is what it would feel like to lose one’s mind and be on the outside of one’s life, unable to get back in. He heard Ren’s voice again. Maybe only seconds had passed.

“Can I? Please. Can I just for now, call you by that name? I want to have something from when you were happy.” 

“Well,” Hux said, his voice shaking, lips slightly numb, tears building up pressure and threatening to spill, “we all – ‘all’ – I mean most of us who matter the most,” hating the phrase as it fell off his tongue, “know what your mama must have called you when you were small and happy. But we aren’t permitted to say it. Pain of death and all that. So.”

“I won’t tell anyone.” Ren was so earnest, and his voice was breathy with anticipation. “Please. You know, so say it. We’re safe here. Nobody but us here. Please.”

Hux frantically searched for ways it could be a trap. He had plausible deniability on his side. If Ren claimed that they had been here, in this bedroom, and the General had spoken his forbidden birth name, it could simply be flatly denied. He could probably make even Snoke buy it. And if not, Ren’s hands were not clean in this. If it were a trap, it would be one of mutually assured destruction.

He rolled onto his side to face Ren. He had no idea what the hell he was doing nor why. “Ben,” he said.

Ren’s reply was a harsh, tearing sob. His eyes widened in anguish, then he lowered his face and curled in on himself. He shook and sobbed and cried fat wet tears; and clung pathetically to Hux.

“Mitzi.” His voice was thick with tears and he clutched Hux against his wet face. “Mitzi. I’m… I’m sorry.”

“I don’t understand,” Hux said, his own salt tears coating his cheek, running down over his temple and onto his ear. “What is this? _What is this?_ We can’t both be like this. I don’t understand.” He held tightly to Ren, and wept. “Why?”

“We need to lean on each other,” Ren said in a shaking voice. “Take comfort in each other. I’m so sorry.”

Hux reached up and took a loose handful of Ren’s hair, resting his fist against Ren’s neck. “Why? I let you do this. Why?”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry you’re sad. I’m sorry about everything.” Ren’s face was red and his eyes were puffed and swollen. An embarrassing state to be in. Hux’s own face must have been in such a state. It was past the point of mattering.

“Did you know this was going to happen?”

“I don’t know.”

Surely he must have known, Hux thought. He must have known what he was setting himself up for. Was he selfishly using Hux’s pain as a way in to his own catharsis? Hux bloody hoped not. He sighed heavily and shakily. It was just as likely, if not more so, that Ren really had been caught out by the intensity of his own emotions. It had happened before, he was fairly sure.

Hux laid his hand softly against the dry side of Ren’s cheek. “You said this was important.”

“I did.” Ren took Hux’s other hand and laced their fingers together. “It is. And we’re safe here, I promise.”

Hux brought Ren’s hand to his lips and kissed it. “I seem to be trusting you in this.”

“It is the guidance of the Force.”

Hux didn’t want to know about the bloody Force, yet Ren’s certainty was reassuring. “It was so long ago. Why do I need to go back to it?”

“An unbroken line joins then and now.”

 “What is this unbroken line? From my point of view, there was very much a before and an after. Isn’t that the whole point of this? One day I lived with my mother and the next day I didn’t.”

“Do you know what I said to my father?” Ren was animated and on the verge of agitated. “I said, your son is dead. I said, your son was weak and foolish, so I killed him.”

_Weakness. Weakness and how to eradicate it and replace it with strength. A guidebook._

“I was weak and useless and all the rest of it, but you learn how to behave, how to keep working hard, don’t you?”

“But nobody killed you.”

“No.” Hux stroked Ren’s cheek again. “To be perfectly accurate, nobody killed you either. You are quite alive.”

“Yes. Exactly.” Ren lowered his eyes and spoke hesitantly. “I thought that I could end one thing and begin another. Death is death, rebirth is rebirth. But it isn’t like that.”

“I expect it was symbolic,” Hux said, bitterly. “I don’t get on terribly well with the symbolic, as you know.”

“Let me put it this way for you. It isn’t as much of a discontinuity as I would have liked to believe. It is a continuity. An unbroken line.”

“Well. Quite. I am not having trouble with the concept of continuity. It’s…” he paused and sucked in air,  “the sadness. The regret. The terrible lack of something. That you keep forcing me to remember.” His chest shivered and his cheeks dampened again.

“I’m not forcing you.”

“No. I know. You’re not. And doesn’t that make it worse?”

“We aren’t droids. You can wipe a droid’s memory. Install new modules, new memories. Program it to your every need. We aren’t droids: we’re men.”

“It would be easier if I were a droid.”

“No it wouldn’t.” Ren wrapped himself around Hux, tightly. “No. Mitzi darling, no, it wouldn’t.”

Hux wept quietly into the warmth of Ren’s shoulder. He hadn’t balked at the “darling” although maybe he should. It was all part of the same pain. Everything, just everything, hurt.

He sat up suddenly, and looked down at Ren, who took his hand again. “Are we… friends?” he said. “I don’t understand quite what we are any more.”

“Maybe. We could be. Just here.”

He squeezed Ren’s hand tightly for a moment, then swept his hands over his face, pressing the heels of his hands over his damp eyes. “I don’t know what this is and it hurts so much but I don’t want to stop.”

“Don’t worry, Mitz.”

Hux smiled thinly through his tears. “Maybe you could call me that. That might be OK. Just here. As part of your experiment.”

“Thank you.” Kylo looked so earnest and hopeful. “Maybe we would be friends. As part of the experiment.”

Friends. 

_~Building things with blocks, with Sally, and Maron. Auntie Jo said to Mummy when she came to collect him, “look at the lovely castle Armitage has made with his friends” He’d wanted to be king and Sally had wanted to be queen and Auntie Jo had said they could be king and queen together but they didn’t want that and he’d shouted ‘I don’t want to marry Sally’ and Sally had gone off to be queen of something else and Maron was playing with his TIE fighters.~_

It was so vivid, yet if you’d asked him yesterday if he remembered a little boy called Maron who collected toy starfighters he’d have said no and looked straight through you like you needed reconditioning. 

Friends.

Hux decided he had questions.

“Did you have friends, before? And this is a stupid question, but are your Knights your friends? Sorry if that’s inappropriate terminology.”

“The answer to the first question is either yes or no, depending on who you ask.”

Hux spoke very softly. “I’m asking _you_. Ben.”

Ren’s face crumpled. He sniffed back more tears. “I did. It was good at times. Sometimes it was hard, because of how I am. I learned not to need friends. And I don’t. I really don’t. Except…”

“Except like this?”

“Except you. Like this. It hurts. Does it hurt for you?”

“I said, didn’t I? It fucking hurts so much.”

“I’m sorry. It’ll be OK. Things hurt, when you’re not a droid.” He gave a weak hollow laugh. “Even if you are.”

“What?”

“I used to know a droid who complained a lot.”

“Oh.”

“You should have met him. He’d have liked you.”

 Ren had had all these people around him. People and droids, and it must all have been such a mess.

“Did I tell you I wanted to go home, with my father?”

“I think you did. You were saying a lot of things when we brought you back.”

“Sometimes I still want to go home, Mitz.”

“I don’t have a home to go to, really.”

“Nor do I. I wasn’t supposed to let anywhere feel like home. So in that, I have failed.” He looked into the middle distance, at nothing. “Dad said they missed me.” He started to weep again.

Hux didn’t have anyone to miss him. How could Ren not see this?

“I didn’t believe him,” Ren continued. “They missed someone who never existed. The good son. But at the same time…” he gathered himself , “this is what I have to put together.”

“Carry on. You might as well.”

“This is what I have to make sense out of.  There is an unbroken line that passes through all these points. I have to know it. I must learn to be wise, in my own right.”

Hux wished, not for the first or fifth or fourteenth time that Ren didn’t have to make these oblique and cryptic pronouncements. Ren continued, anyway.

“From one way of telling the story, they missed someone who never existed. From another, they missed me. There is some overlap. Some points in common. Somewhere in all of this is my balance.”

“I can’t help you with any of that.”

“You help me more than you know. The comfort I find in you…”

“You turn to me when I’m at my weakest. How am I supposed to bring you strength?”

“We lean on each other. That way we both stay standing. It helps you, too.”

“It does.”

 They stayed for a minute or two completely silent, before Ren sat up, energised, possessed of an idea.

“Is there anything you liked from back then that I could get for you. Some candy, maybe. What were your favourites?”

“Don’t be silly.”

“I go places. I can get things. It doesn’t have to be complicated. Did you have a favourite food? Something I can bring back for you. Because I’d like to.”

“You’re actually serious about this.”

“It’s something I need to do.”

Hux went along with it. His own decision making had started to catch him off-guard. “I liked … There were some sweets that I liked. They were small hard sugar sweets, cherry flavoured, and they came in a box with a cherry tree on it.” Without really meaning to, Hux indicated the size of the box with his hands.

“A box with a cherry tree.”

“Ren, thirty years have gone by. The branding will have changed. They probably don’t even make them any more.”

“I’ll look for them. And I’ll bring you other things, too. I’ll plant a hundred cherry trees on the flight deck. Please let me be nice to you.” 

“Cherry trees on the flight deck. How am I listening to this?”

“Let me bring you your sweets.”

“Honestly though, how will you find them?”

Kylo smiled; his rare, uneven, fractured smile. “I’ll research. I’m good at research. Finding connections. Finding sources. I’m not just a big idiot with a lightsaber, you know.”

“I know.”

“How do you think I found out about you? Research. Minutes of meetings in the Imperial archives, which led me to journals, which led me to formulate the right questions and put them to the right people.”

“What people? Don’t talk about me. Don’t talk to people about me.”

“Don’t worry. I’m on your side now.” He patted Hux’s hand. “An aide to Admiral Sloane who remembered certain comments the Admiral had made, off the record. He won’t remember I ever spoke to him, you know,” he added, with a grin.

“You seem very keen I should trust you.”

“You already do.” And there was the horror of it. He already did.

“Why are you doing this?”

“It’s a challenge.” Ren's brows moved in thought. “I’ve never brought you a present before. I should make up for lost time.”

Hux bit his lip.

“I want to, Mitz. I want to give you things. I want to cherish you.”

“I can’t have this be all one way. Is there anything you want that I can get you? I don’t exactly get much shore leave, but I can try.”

“What I want is that which is most precious to you, and which I can’t, even with my powers, easily take from you. Time. Your time, your attention. Like this. And the chance to be like this.”

He was right, of course. Hux’s time was rare and precious. It had scarcity value. But Kylo Ren was very powerful, and turned things to his will. At least, that was supposed to be the point of him. “So, could you not, then, with your powers, force me to pay attention to you,” Hux asked. 

“Only in a basic, rudimentary way. I could make it so that you could not look away, or you might hear my voice as you went about your business, but that isn’t the attention I want.”

“You strike me as someone who always wants attention,” Hux said, fondly.

“Well. One wants what one can’t have.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Auntie Jo" was not a related auntie, but a coworker of Armitage's mother who ran the staff creche. Mrs Willan was the infant class teacher. Armitage's mother had befriended her and borrowed books and elementary math worksheets for her bright little boy. He was going to start school in the next few months and Mrs Willan was looking forward to having him in her class.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Knight comes bearing gifts.

Chief Petty Officer Unamo requested his attention.

“We have a communication from Kylo Ren, sir.”

“Proceed.”

“His shuttle is due to dock at 1120h, sir. I have provisionally allocated the starboard hangar.”

“Very good.”

“Will you be present to receive him, sir? He wants to meet with you.”

“Hm. Afraid that won’t be possible. I have a strategy meeting between 1100 and 1200. Advise him that I will be available at 1600h, or he can find me on the bridge after lunch.”

“Very good, sir.”

“If he needs to urgently debrief, I suppose I can send…” Hux thought of who might be considered worth Ren’s time yet wouldn’t be tied up in the strategy meeting. “I’ll send Colonel Vedran if it’s urgent, but otherwise, Ren can come and find me.” He smoothed his hands over the front of his breeches, needlessly. “He knows how to do that.”

The strategy meeting went well enough. Control of the Bitaquan sector would be secured by neutralising the local warlord. Though his forces could be defeated with the First Order’s military might, at least part of the local population would most likely remain loyal. Hux did not want his troops to get bogged down fighting a local insurgency and preferred the suggestion of converting the warlord to an asset of the Order. It would only require some inexpensive bribery and an appeal to the man’s large and naive ego. After the meeting, Hux took a light lunch, knowing that he had a plate of leftovers from yesterday’s dinner sitting in his personal conservator.

There was a note on Hux’s desk – right in the middle of on his personal desk, in his personal quarters. A small piece of flimsi, just to the right of his console, weighed down with the milled titanium engine part Hux used as a paperweight. He had not left it there himself. 

He had spoken with Kylo Ren about unauthorised access to personal quarters before. Although, to be scrupulously fair, by virtue of his rank Hux had override codes to the Knight’s door, though he had only used them in the case of dire emergency.

Hex took off his cap, peeled off his gloves and placed them neatly atop the cap, then looked at the note.

_Cherries are in the conservator. xx KR_

He bit his lip to restrain his amusement at what people might think if they knew that the Master of the Knights of Ren signed notes with two little kisses. His heart warmed, too – he was not at all used to receiving gifts like this. He had half been expecting that Ren’s exuberant promises of gifts would turn out to be more on the metaphorical side.

In his conservator, next to his covered plate of leftovers, there was indeed a plastic box of fresh cherries; bright polish-shine red and garnished with a sprig of cherry blossom. Since, logically, flowers precede fruit, Ren must have gone to the trouble of getting blossom from a flowering cherry tree as well as obtaining the box of cherries. Interesting. Hux took the blossom from the box and touched it. The petals were like cold silk. Quite lovely. 

Tucked in behind the cherries was another note, folded over in half. Hux slid it out and unfolded it.

_Candy is on your nightstand. I’d like to share it with you so don’t eat it all. B._

Oh. So he’d done _that_. He’d used the secret name, or as much of it as he could bear, or dare.  Hux’s arms felt odd in the sleeves of his jacket. He was not sure if he was ready for what was coming. He sent Ren a comm text straight away, nonetheless.

_Thank you so much. Please come by at earliest opportunity to share your spoils. A.H._

He plucked a cherry and slipped it into his mouth: cold and smooth as it passed his lips; sweet and delicious when he bit into it. He followed it with another, genteely spat both stones into his hand, dropped them into the trash, and took out a bowl to receive further cherry stones. He passed through into the bedroom, following the call of the promised cherry tree candy – but met first of all a small package sitting on his bed. Unwrapping it, here was a genuine surprise – brand new socks, and rather good ones, too. He hadn’t asked for socks. Ren’s independent exercise of will did not usually have such pleasant results.

On his nightstand stood a neat stack of three boxes, and right on the very top was the very smallest box. It _was_ – beyond hope and magic and dreams, _there it was_ , his cherry tree candy. The packaging, he saw, had changed slightly – the writing on the front was in a slightly different typeface and there was something different about the picture of the flowering cherry tree. Hux held the box and ran his fingers over it, as if it were some precious Imperial artefact. Where had the memory of the old box come from, for him to have it to compare with the new box? How had he remembered what the old typeface looked like? The more one thought about memory, the more uncanny one felt, all in all. Even without the involvement of Ren’s Force-tricks.

He inspected the other boxes. There was a box of cherries soaked in cherry brandy and coated in chocolate, the very concept of which had Hux’s eyes widening. A box of biscuits, very light, so light that Hux wondered what they could possibly be made of. He thought he would save all the treats until Ren was here to share them with him, and chose instead to pay attention to the socks.

They were thick, and softer than they looked. Hux pulled and stretched the knit. It seemed quite durable. They’d provide good comfortable party under his boots. A label indicated the socks were a blend of two different wools, one from the standard galactic sheep, and one from a creature he recognised as a kind of cold climate goat. He could have done with socks like this on Starkiller.

He eased off his boots, wiggling them over his ankles, then peeled off his old socks and draped them over the top of his boots. Really, the new socks deserved better than to be put onto unwashed feet. He went to the fresher, and rinsed his feet in the basin, patting them dry with his hand towel before pulling on the socks with a sense of pleasant minor ritual. Soft and comfortable, they’d be just splendid for a long day on his feet. Hux resolved to take the label from the socks down to the requisitioning office, and have a little quiet word with one of the staff there just to see if more pairs like this could be procured. Or why not simply ask Kylo for ten more pairs. Would it be greedy to ask?

He pulled his boots back on to see how they’d work together. Yes. Superb. He paced with pride up and down the room. Ren had done very well indeed.

It was just then that Ren announced himself. Hux hurried, on newly cosseted feet, to the door. It slid open and Hux invited Ren, helmet under his arm and a rather uncharacteristic hopeful look on his face, in.

“I’m wearing the socks,” Hux announced, standing back and bouncing on the balls of his feet. “They’re absolutely marvellous. Thank you. Very much.”

Kylo, that odd look on his face dissolving into an equally uncharacteristic smile, gathered him into his arms. “I’m glad,” he said. “I thought you would like them.” Hux still felt a pang of conflict about being held, even as Kylo’s hair brushed soft against Hux’s face. 

Presents, and hugs. It was a long way from what he’d thought they’d been about when they had started seeing one another. It had been, he thought, about basic physical needs and the resolution of tension. The famed military strategist had not foreseen any of this. Neither, he thought, with a kiss to Ren’s cheek, had the mystic clairvoyant.

“Cherries first, or the delicious things in boxes?” he asked.

“It’s up to you.”

Hux offered up the box of cherries. “Eat some of these with me.” He ate another himself. “They’re rather good.” He neatly disposed of the stone, hoping Kylo would pick up on the etiquette.

Kylo took one and ate it with relish.

“Where did you get them?”

“I told you, I go places. Ask my pilots.”

Hux rolled his eyes. “So shall we sit here or go through?”

“Take them through there, I thought…”

Hux was already taking his boots off as Ren spoke. 

Ren followed him.

“Which do you think we should have first?” Hux took the box of cherry tree candy and placed it to one side, to discount it from immediate consideration. His hand lingered on the box.

“These biscuits, with the cherries.” Kylo opened the package and pulled out a plastic rack filled with dome shaped biscuits. He popped a cherry into his mouth, spat out the stone, very nearly neatly, then bit into one of the biscuits. Crumbs scattered on his robes.

“Be careful, you’re making crumbs,” Hux muttered, before taking his own cherry and biscuit. The biscuit was sweet and strongly almond flavoured, and had a curious effect on the taste of the fruit, intensifying the flavour. “Oh my stars, this is delicious.”

Ren gave him his rare smile again. “See?” He suddenly felt fortunate again, as though he were the sort of person who had things like this given to him.

At Ren’s suggestion, they also broke into the box of chocolate brandy cherries. Quick reactions were needed to prevent disaster as hard chocolate gave way to a gush of alcoholic syrup that could have spilled messily onto Hux’s uniform breeches. The brandy warmth of it was very pleasant, and the cherry itself a sweet secret treasure, tender to the tooth. This was decadence. Nobody could know that he had these things, nor that Kylo Ren had brought them.

“These are rather marvellous. You went above and beyond.”

“The Knights helped me find them.”

Hux felt something turn cold in the middle of him. “What? You _told_ them?”

“Shh. Quiet, Hux,” Ren admonished with a gesture of his hand. “They know we are seeing one another.”

“What? I’d really rather they didn’t.” He caught his breath.  “They don’t know about… they don’t know the _reason_ behind the cherries?”

“No, no. I kept that secret, just for us. I didn’t _tell_ them anything.”

“But they know…”

“Hux. They are powerful Force adepts. They pick up on feelings and emotions just as I do. They think this is a significant gift-giving. And they are right.”

Hux sighed. “Well. I suppose you give me no choice but to trust you.” He reached into the box of chocolates again. “I’ll allow myself just one more of these.”

Ren shifted on the bed. “I should give my apologies for how things went before – it was an experiment.”

As if that was any excuse. “I shouldn’t have let you do it. I should have gone to the ship’s psytechs.”

Ren shook his head. “You wouldn't have gone.”

“I might have. They would have come up with something. A pharmaceutical adjustment.”

”You wouldn't have told them what was bothering you.”

“I resent that.”

“You would not. Because you didn't know. Until I asked you to remember.”

“Perhaps. In any case, I’ve been bearing up quite well. None of the intense episodes.”

Ren nodded. “Yes. You have been bearing up well. This is a good result.”

Hux considered how to respond; and what Ren might mean by a _good result_. He would rather not get too far into revisiting the situation Ren had got them into, with the weeping and wailing and all that business. Yet he ought to acknowledge Ren’s own struggle, or whatever he wanted to call it. “And, ah, how have you been? With the things you were working on? Your ‘line’, or whatever it was you were calling it.”

“Improving. I am learning.”

“Good. Good.”

“I did more research,” Ren said.

“Ah, good,” Hux mumbled, chasing another cherry with another almond biscuit.

“Who did you talk to this time? Eric Nablan again?”

“I did speak to him, and also Sernu.”

“Sernu? And what did she have to say?”

“A few interesting things.”

“Neither of them will remember anything? You promised that.”

“Not a thing.”

“Good. They were both fine young people, I think. Well. Not so young any more.”

“You lived through tough times,” Ren said. “Perhaps I didn't appreciate that.”

“Perhaps you didn’t.”

“How much did you know of what was happening? The siege, for example?”

Hux sighed. “The siege.” He shook his head a little. “It was worse, I discovered later, than I’d realised. We were shielded from it, for a little while, by virtue of being a military installation. Top priority for food.”

“So you didn’t go hungry?”

“I remember… what _do_ I remember?”

“I could help you again.”

“No. I’d rather you didn’t. Just for the moment. I think,” and he furrowed his brow and thought intently, “I think we didn’t start to feel it until the last few months. I _think_ , and I may be rationalising, that we were on a reduced allocation for a while, and then on a further reduced allocation. But the cooks were good at making things go further.”

“Did your mother still bring home food?”

“For a little while, I think. But much smaller portions. One potato, maybe, or dried synthetic meat. I think I _did_ know why, at the time. And obviously, later on everyone came to be taught about the siege of Arkanis. How they starved us out and let thousands die.”

“They didn’t teach the New Republic children anything about that. Nice stories about liberation and victory. Candy coated lies.”

Hux thought a little more, and something else fell into place, making itself relevant. His father, when he’d been taken to him, not seeming to have gotten thinner like most of the other people he saw around the Academy grounds. “Huh. Funny thing, though,” he said. “My father was still well fed.”

“Was he, now? Interesting.”

And of course, it was. Certainly, once they were on the ship, his father had taken even more greatly to his food and drink, until he had suddenly started slimming down again. He’d been terribly bad-tempered about it. 

He shook his head. “Why didn’t I remember any of this before?”

“You didn’t need to remember before.”

“No. And I didn’t want to. I programmed it away, I suppose.”

“With your machines?”

“No, no. Just personal determination, I suppose. And the fact of there always being something more important to focus on in the present.”

“You’re remembering more on your own. That’s good.”

“Is it? I don’t want to remember anything… difficult. Not when it might cause me problems. If I were on duty, and something happened, and I had a reaction.”

“I understand.”

“Do you. You should really do the thing, you know, with the Force, if you want me to talk about things.”

Hux felt a ripple in the air, and quietness surrounded him. The sounds of the ship were distant now, as if underwater.

“I don’t know how you do this, but I’m very grateful.” He sat back against his pillows and looked up at Ren. “We’ll go back to normal in a little while, but I need this now. It’s just like taking a break, isn’t it?”

“Yes. It is. You need to take breaks. Let the Force flow through you. Listen to it.”

“I can’t do that.”

“I shall do it for you,” Ren said, lying back beside him.

Hux reached out for the box of cherry sweets. “I suppose it’s time to try these,” he said, tracing the lines of the box with a fingertip.

“You’re handling them like they’re high explosives.”

“Well, no, it’s just…”

“You’re wary. I can feel it.”

Hux shifted, trying to shrug the accusation off. “Did you find these on your own or was it a group effort?”

Ren gave a wry smile. “By myself. I looked through archives of commerce to find out which confectionery manufacturers shipped to the Christophsis-Arkanis-Ryloth route under the Empire. Then I checked each company’s current line of goods, and found this range of sugar things. Cherry flavour is currently only sold on one shipping route, but by that point it was, as you often say yourself, merely logistics.”

“Oh. Why couldn’t I do that myself? If it was so easy.”

Ren shrugged. “The first part took some time.” 

Hux sat up, hunching himself over his precious box. He slid a thumbnail under a tab, and it opened, releasing the scent of artificial cherry flavour. It tried to take him back to the back corridors of the Academy prep school, back to the staircase that led to the tiny apartment. Being allowed sweets because he’d been good, _although Mummy can’t afford to give you sweets every day like some of the other children. But we have treats from the kitchen sometimes._

He sniffed at the box and bit his lip, then dared to pick one of the tiny rough lozenges from the box and put it in his mouth. They were the same. Just the same. “They’re just like I remember,” he said, weakly. “I don’t know if I should have them.”

Ren rested his chin on Hux’s shoulder. “Do you like them?”

“Yes. Of course I like them. I don’t know if I should have them. They’re not really… I can’t explain.”      

“I brought them for you. I haven’t done anything like this for a long time.”

“Thank you. You have one.” He took another sweet out of the box, and handed it back to Ren. He caught himself thinking it might have been alright to have him eat it from his fingers, seeing as they were sitting here so intimately.

He took one for himself. “These were mine a long time ago. But I don’t know about now.”

“We have our own things that are particular to us. I have my sacred things from my grandfather.” He paused. “Nobody told me about him. Not truthfully. I had to do it for myself. With guidance, but really for myself.”

Hux wasn’t sure what Ren was trying to tell him. “Do I have to be that little child? Not knowing what was coming.” He felt empty and uncomfortable; angry more than anything else that this child he’d been had no idea of how lucky he was. No idea of what was coming, and what he could need to be afraid of. 

“So you were afraid,” Ren said, reading him much too well, homing in on the disgraceful truth. “Understandable. Eric Nablan openly admitted that he was afraid of the project children. Everyone was. He was a young man at the time, and you were a small child.”

“If they hadn’t answered to me, I would have remained afraid. And they would have devoured me.”

Ren nodded slowly. “Nablan said they weren’t like the current Stormtroopers.”

“No. We modified the conditioning greatly from those early attempts. My father’s methods were, well, crude.” He gave a hollow laugh.

“So I understand.” Did he? _Did he know?_ Could he read it in him? The shame, the humiliation, and the burning resentment? 

“They gave you power,” Ren said. “But you have to learn how to use it. You know I know that.”

“Well, quite.”

“Nablan said that you learned fast. They had to sharpen your edges. Sloane was proud of you.”

“She wouldn't be now. We turned from her principles.” 

“Hmm. Sernu insinuated something like that. She spoke pointedly of Sloane’s initial principles.”

“I would rather… no, I don’t want to say what might be treason.”

“Sloane protected you. Of course that merits loyalty.“

“It was quid pro quo at the time. Justifiably. That’s how life works.”

“I suppose it is,” Ren said, sadly.

“Can we… I don’t know how to say it properly, but you’ll understand, won’t you? The place where we’re friends?”

“Of course. We’re here. Here already.”

“Thank you.”

“There, Mitz.” He squeezed Hux's hand. “Thank you for sharing these with me,” he whispered.

“I wanted to share them.”

“And I wanted to give them to you. To know what that was like, again.”

“Thank you. Thank you, Ben. Do I say that? It’s hard to know how to…” 

“You can say that.” His eyes were big and dark and brimming with that dreadful hopefulness.

Hux took a deep breath, sighed, and started on his own piece. “Look. Listen. It’s like this. Mother loved me. Father on the other hand did not. Sloane looked out for me. Helped me. Made a soldier of me, but then again they all did. All the officers. And of course the project children, they obeyed me. _You_ , though. What do _you_ do?”

“I’m here. I can help you. We can help each other. Lean on each other.”

Hux looked away again. “You keep saying that and I’m not sure what concerns me most – the help you might offer me, or the help you might require from me.”

“I have to try to do this. It’s part of my journey.”

Hux caught himself once again resenting Ren for all this, holding a suspicion that he was just being used to give Ren whatever emotional breakthrough he needed. “ _Your_ journey,” he said.

“Yours, too,” Ren said, quietly. “Yours too.” He took a breath and started again, as if he were giving a report. “I looked into the Academy set up. The infrastructure. Staffing. Finding out who might know where records could still be kept.”

“Oh, I know where you’re going with this. Personnel records of kitchen staff.” He sighed heavily. “Tell me what you know about her.”

“Her name was… _Sanya_ , wasn’t it?”

“Yes. It was. Huh. Funny. I hadn’t consciously thought of that for quite some time.”

“Memories are strange.”

Hux shook his head. “I had nothing from then, and then you went in my head somehow, and broke them out. And only those fragments, at first.” Dreamily, he revisited them. “Being three years old and playing with friends at the creche. And a bit later, I would have been four, I think, reading with Mother. And, no, now suddenly I recall something else,” he said, his voice taking on a more wide awake note. “A man would come, and ask me questions and… he was testing me in a way, and teaching me. Especially keen on good manners, he was. I worked out at the time that Father must have been sending him. Father did not call by the apartment often. Which suited us, I have to say.”

“Do you remember much about this man who gave you lessons?”

“No. Ren, I hardly remembered my mother’s own name.” He gave a hollow laugh. “Never gave myself cause to think of it. Sanya Reston. Apartment 5.”

“You remember more than I told you. I didn’t feed you the last name.”

“No. I did try to look her up once. Didn’t get very far. Gave it up as a bad idea. And now you’ve come along to show me up and tell me everything, I suppose.”

“No. Not like that. If you want to know more, I could try to give you that.” 

“I don't know.”

“Did you go by your father’s last name, or hers?”

“I was always Armitage officially. Armie, sometimes, though I didn't like that as much, and Mitzi sometimes at home. Sorry, that's not what you asked.”

“That's alright.”

“So, once father took me, and the man the Empire sent for us brought us onto the ship, I had his last name, of course. I was a Hux from that day onwards. And it seems like always. But of course it wasn’t.”

Ren seemed to understand.

“I was about to start school properly, and, yes, I went by her last name. Armitage Reston, it would have said on my school things. Officially. I was a secret, you see.” _A secret, a shame, a disappointment, an ungrateful son._

“I know.”

“Ugh, this is awful. You know more about my life than I do, it seems.” 

“She loved you. And she had time for you.”

“She did. Are you jealous of that? I know you had your differences with your family, to put it mildly.” 

“Maybe. They were never…” and now Ren shook his head and sighed sadly. “They were always so busy. But we did have happy times. When we could pretend we were any good at any of this.”

Hux sniffed. “Is that all I can do? Be better at pretending?”

“You can let me do this for you," Ren said, insistent. "I could find her for you. I already did most of the research.”

“I don't know if I want you to. Maybe it's best left. All in the past. Maybe we shouldn't have dug these things up.”

“It was ready to come out of you. Your memories. Your longing.”

“I _want_ to. But that doesn't mean I _should_.”

“Imagine if you could, but you didn't. And then you regretted not having done it.”

“I don't know.”

“It's too late for me. This here,” Ren said, placing his hand on his chest, “I can’t change. But it's not too late for you.” He carried on, throwing more at Hux’s defences. “Attachment doesn’t make me weaker. It was the same for Darth Vader. He suffered because he had what he wanted taken from him. Not because he wanted it at all. I was misled. Don’t you see?”

Hux really wasn’t sure that he did. 

 

_***epilogue***_

 

Yet, he had agreed to it.

He had agreed to it and it was all happening. An extremely secure holochannel had been set up, with protocols only accessible to the seven Knights of Ren.

Kylo Ren, handheld screen gripped between his big hands, was negotiating the security protocols, and Hux could barely bring himself to look. His stomach clawed at him. After a deep fortifying breath, He peered over Ren’s shoulder into the screen, and briefly saw the helmet of another Knight. Ren recited another incomprehensible formula, and the Knight answered back with what must have been the appropriate response, because both removed their helmets. The Knight at the other end of the line showed herself to be a woman with large clear eyes and a sullen, fish-like mouth. Hux found her distasteful, and relished his pettiness in so doing.

“Master,” she said. “She is here. Umit is with her.”

“Is she comfortable?”

“Comfortable,” she replied with a shrug. “A little afraid, but that can hardly be helped. Is he with you?”

“He is.”

“I shall hand you to Umit.” 

The point of view of the camera changed, and Hux saw at first a dark face, a man’s face with heavy eyebrows and a raised scar on his cheek. This Knight, presumably Umit Ren, acknowledged his master, and then repositioned the camera again.

“Ms Reston.”

Hux could see her over Ren’s shoulder. Hair short and laced with grey. Face lined and softened. But it was her. It was her, the one who hadn't been able to protect him, the one he hadn't been able to protect, the one who hadn't fetched him and saved him when he wept silent and alone, the one who had taken him to crèche every day and who had read to him and played games with him.

Ren passed the screen to him.

She could see him. Her face made the shape of some emotion he couldn't name. Horror made a great part of it. Regret. Yearning. Loss. Love. Mostly love.

His face quivered. He could feel it doing it, outside of his will.

Ren squeezed his hand tight. He could barely hold back the sob that threatened his dignity, its hold on his throat as palpable as that of a hand.

“Mummy?” he whispered, too late to stop himself.


End file.
